EARTH DAY 2025: BRITONS URGED TO BECOME “CITIZENS OF ONE WORLD”

• 2024 was the world’s hottest year on record
• Late Pope Francis said the “Earth has a fever”
• MPs will discuss today a radical shift for transport
• Reduction in car use of a quarter needed
• Earth Day 2025 – Our Power: Our Planet

The world comes together today to mark Earth Day 2025.  2024 was the hottest year on record, exceeding even the extreme heat of 2023.

The late Pope Francis said “If we took the planet’s temperature, it would tell us that the Earth has a fever. And it is sick.”

A new report by Greener Vision calls for a new mindset to tackle the climate crisis, and radical shift for decarbonising transport. The report will be discussed today by MPs at the Net Zero All-Party Parliamentary Group.

Transport is the fastest growing source of global greenhouse GHG emissions and the UK’s biggest polluting sector.  Emissions from road transport – 95% of the UK’s transport total – have hardly changed since 1990.  Vehicles efficiency gains have been largely offset by larger vehicles and rising demand. SUV registrations could make up 75% of new registrations by 2027^[i].

The Climate Change Committee says the annual reduction in surface transport emissions for the rest of this decade needs to be more than four times the small (0.9%) reduction in 2023.^[ii]

The UK is not on track to achieve the 2030 target of a 68% reduction in emissions. The new report draws on extensive research and consultations to identify what would be a credible, politically deliverable framework for decarbonising transport.  Urgent focus is needed on behaviour change, including a reduction in car use by 2030 of around a quarter.  Achieving this will require a radical shift in approach.

The report argues that ‘policy as usual’ won’t achieve net zero. We need new thinking, creative solutions and systemic change.  Climate policy should be informed by five ‘Pillars of Unity’. [See NOTE 1]

Claire Haigh, Founder & CEO of Greener Vision commented:

“Climate change is our greatest existential threat and a global problem calling for unprecedented levels of cooperation.

“Our current approach is not working.  Unless we change, we are heading for a dystopian future of devastating climate impacts and untold human suffering. We need an approach that builds unity not division.  

“We must become ‘Citizens of One World’.  For real and lasting change, we must start with ourselves.”  

The theme for Earth Day 2025 is “Our Power Our Planet” with a call to triple global generation of clean energy by 2030.  

Global average temperatures in 2024 hit around 1.55°C above the pre-industrial average, outstripping even the record heat of 2023.^[iii]  Extreme weather, record breaking heatwaves, lethal flooding, wildfires and typhoons are now the deadly norm.  There is still no sign that the world has reached a peak with increase in GHG emissions of around 1% projected for 2024.^[iv]

The UN’s first comprehensive stocktake of global efforts to limit warming concluded that the world is headed for a temperature rise of up to 2.6°C which would have devastating consequences.

Millions of people are already struggling with the fatal impacts of climate change.  An intense heatwave in Asia. Powerful storms in the United States.  Devastating droughts across southern Africa.  Deadly floods and storms affected more than 400,000 people in Europe in 2024^[v] and we all pay the costs of climate chaos in disrupted supply chains and rising prices.

Far steeper emissions cuts will be needed to avert a future dominated by catastrophic climate impacts, devastating human suffering and an increasingly uninhabitable world.

-ENDS-

GREENER VISION: PATHWAYS TO NET ZERO – Achieving the target will require new thinking, creative solutions and systemic change is published on Tuesday 22^nd April, Earth Day 2025.  The report can be downloaded here.

For further information email info@greener-vision.com

Notes to Editors:

1. The Pillars of Unity

• Seeing the whole picture – we need to become more honest and self-aware about our decision-making.
• Integrating heart and mind – we need to engage our emotional brains in climate change.
• Being at one with nature – we need a radical realignment of how we perceive ourselves in relation to the environment on which we depend.
• Healing the whole system – we need to address the root causes of climate change: our addiction to fossil fuels.
• Becoming citizens of ‘One World’ – we need to connect with our natural empathy and respect for each other and all living species.

2. About the Report 

GREENER VISION: PATHWAYS TO NET ZERO – Achieving the target will require new thinking, creative solutions and systemic change identifies ways in which our approach to tackling the climate crisis needs to change and recommends a radical shift for decarbonising transport.

Building on the Pathways to Net Zero thought leadership programmes run by Greener Vision, the report also draws on The Tabula Project, a 30-year creative endeavour which started with the assumption that we won’t solve our most intractable problems with the same thinking that created them.

The related report The Art of Seeing recommends a more open and self-reflective approach, starting with an honest appraisal of how we look at the problem.

3. About Greener Vision

Greener Vision is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to encouraging the switch to a greener future. The Foundation for Integrated Transport has provided grant funding to support Greener Vision’s work since 2021.  www.greener-vision.com

[i] https://www.transportenvironment.org/te-united-kingdom/articles/uk-suv-sales-have-increased-by-more-than-a-fifth-in-one-year

[ii] https://www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Progress-in-reducing-emissions-2024-Report-to-Parliament-Web.pdf

[iii] https://wmo.int/publication-series/state-of-global-climate-2024#:~:text=It%20confirms%20that%202024%20was,above%20the%20pre%2Dindustrial%20baseline.

[iv] https://globalcarbonbudget.org/fossil-fuel-co2-emissions-increase-again-in-2024/

[v] https://climate.copernicus.eu/esotc/2024